Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) generally refers to the concept of locally heating a recording medium to reduce the coercivity of the medium. This allows an applied magnetic field to more easily direct the magnetization of a data bit on the medium during a temporary magnetic softening caused by the heat source. HAMR allows for the use of small grain media with a larger magnetic anisotropy at room temperature to assure sufficient thermal stability, which is desirable for recording at increased areal densities. HAMR can be applied to any type of magnetic storage media including tilted media, longitudinal media, perpendicular media, and patterned media. By heating the media, the coercivity of the media is reduced such that the magnetic write field is sufficient to write to the media. Once the media cools to a normal operating temperature, the coercivity has a sufficiently high value to assure thermal stability of the recorded information. Better designs are needed to increase efficiency, alignment, precision, and reduced size of the local heating.